Job Offer
by Seito
Summary: A series of meetings and conversations that didn't happen, but should have. Their first meeting went like this: "Hey kid, I like your stuff. Do you want a job at Stark Industries?" "Thanks, but no thanks." -slight spoilers for AoU-


**Warning:** Slight spoilers for Age of Ultron.

This is **NOT** a continuation of Sidewalk Conversation.

Summary:

A series of meetings and conversations that didn't happen, but should have. Their first meeting went like this: "Hey kid, I like your stuff. Do you want a job at Stark Industries?" "Thanks, but no thanks."

* * *

Their first meeting went like this:

"Hey kid, I like your stuff. Do you want a job at Stark Industries?"

"Thanks, but no thanks."

Tony blinked, surprised at the response. He had been dragged to SFIT's Showcase by Pepper, something he had grudgingly gone to. If you've been to one showcase/expo you've been to them all. Sure, it was good to see up and coming talent, but this was still, well kid stuff. The kids were smart, they wouldn't be in SFIT if they weren't, but they lacked experience, refinement. They were brats who hadn't grown up yet. Nothing but fancy toys. Nothing that could be refined into something saleable, usable and useful in today's society.

That was until he found this scrawny tiny Japanese kid's hoverboard display. It was like something out of a terrible sci-fi movie but, it _worked_. It actually worked. The hoverboard was something that looked disgustingly easy at first glance, until one started factoring gravity, weight, propulsion, _fuel_.

Yet this kid had a working prototype. It still needed work, that much Tony could see. Right now it couldn't support more than the kid's weight and it didn't move faster then a slow walk (which all but negated why one would make a hoverboard) but the kid was legit six inches off the floor and making lazy circles around the stage.

Tony was impressed. This kid had potential. So he asked if the kid wanted a job at Stark Industries. To his surprise, the kid had said no. Who said no to Tony Stark? Apparently this kid did.

"Really, Mr. Stark, I'm honored," the kid said, grinning. "But my family is here and there's something I have to do." He gestured to the group of (older) kids and a woman who was probably his mom standing off to the side, waving at the kid excitably.

"That's cool," Tony said. "But if you ever want a job, call me up."

"I will."

* * *

"You didn't tell me that Tadashi Hamada was your brother."

"Hello Mr. Stark, wait you knew my brother?"

Tony pouted at the hologram screen that was displaying one Hiro Hamada's face. It had been a couple months since Tony had met the kid at the SFIT Showcase. Tony had pestered and annoyed until he had the kid's contact information. Sure, it was unbecoming for a man his age, especially towards a minor, but the kid was interesting. Tony dug until he had found the kid's entrance display: microbots. If the kid impressed him with a just barely functional hoverboard, Tony was blown away with the microbots. If anything the hoverboard was nothing but the kid holding back.

"Before he went all crazy, Robert Callaghan used to talk about his favorite student all the time," Tony said as tactfully as he could which wasn't very tactful. The fall of Robert Callaghan had been a wake up call about how easy it was to fall. Still, how it must have burned for Hiro for his brother to die, his invention stolen by the very teacher who was his brother's favorite and used for evil.

As expected, Hiro's expression soured.

"Anyways, I got to see some of your brother's work, like his homework, the essays he had written. He had real potential," Tony rushed to the next part. "Last I heard he had been working on a medical bot. I got asked some questions about Artificial Intelligence. Did he ever finish it?" Cause if he didn't that might be something he and Hiro could work on and release under Tadashi's name. Something to honor his brother's memory.

To his surprise, a fond smile spread across Hiro's face.

"I'll show you one day."

* * *

"Avengers huh?"

Tony brightened as Hiro's face appeared on the screen. Three days after Loki's attack on New York and Tony had finally managed to restore communication after spending the last two days in SHIELD's medical. New York City was a mess. Thousands of people were without shelter and Stark Industries was serving as an emergency care center for many. Pepper finally calmed down to let him out of sight and the rest of his team was helping with the rescue operations.

"Yup." Tony was feeling unbearably smug about it all. Sure, he had a close call with death, but an alien army was defeated, Loki had been caught, Tony had literally just saved the world.

Hiro rolled his eyes, clearly knowing what Tony was thinking. "New tower trashed beyond repair?"

"Yup. Pepper is already looking at new plans."

"So all official now, huh? I thought you were a lone wolf."

"Gotta find a pack eventually."

"Lame."

"Cheeky brat."

Hiro just stuck his tongue out.

Tony grinned. "If you come work for me, you'll be able to meet my new teammates," he bribed the young teenager. Capisle alone would have kids flocking to come meet him.

"In your newly destroyed building?" Hiro mocked. "The answer is still no. I do want to actually graduate with my degree first."

"School is for losers. You don't know what you're missing!"

Hiro just smiled. "Just putting my big brain to use."

* * *

"Sooooo," Tony said. "When were you going to tell me that you were part of your own superhero group? I'm hurt Hiro. I really am. I thought we were friends."

"How did you figure that out?" Hiro asked as he walked into the hotel room Tony was currently staying at. He dropped the red square container he had been carrying to the ground.

"Ooo what's that? Gimme," Tony said, making grabby hands towards it.

"Tony," Hiro said, in almost long suffering sigh.

"Well, I'm under strict orders from SHIELD not to go anywhere while they clean up the aftermath of the Mandarin. Pepper is in the hospital. I blew up all my Iron Man armor. My house is at the bottom of the sea and Rhodey is off dealing with the army or whoever he reports to these days about why the Iron Patriot is a stupid, stupid idea. I'm bored so I decided to check on what my favorite kid genius is doing and got lost reading about some group called Big Hero 6. And looking at the fuzzy pictures and hacking some security cameras I thought some of these guys look very familiar. After all, who else do I know that's a big African American guy with a thesis about laser beams, a Korean chick with a need for speed and electromagnetic discs or a blond Latina girl with a gift of chemistry? Or a small, scrawny Japanese kid using a hoverboard," Tony said pointedly.

Hiro groaned. "I knew taking the hoverboard was a bad idea," he mumbled.

"Don't worry," Tony said. "JARVIS deleted all the video footage he could find with you flying around on the hoverboard. Now I don't know if the blue monster or the red flying robot is Fred, but I'm willing to bet it's the blue one. I'm assuming you built the red flying robot. I've seen what you did with Megabot and I've heard about what you did with your microbots. It isn't too far of a stretch to think you build a fighting robot to help with your superhero duties."

Hiro grinned. "Not quite. But enough of that for now. I'll listen to all your crazy theories later. We can swap superhero adventure stories at our next sleepover. I promised Aunt Cass I'll help out at the cafe, so tell me why you called me to meet you. I mean, sure, you're out of a place to stay here in California, but you could have flown back to New York or any other of your houses. Yet you're here in San Fransokyo visiting me."

Tony flopped back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. This was it. No going back. "I need you to help me to think of a way to safely remove the arc reactor and the shrapnel in my chest."

There he had asked for help. Tony knew he could think of several ways to do it, but since the surgery was going to be performed on him (and he would be knocked out, hopefully, this time around) he wanted someone smart enough to handle it should anything go wrong. Plus, he trusted Hiro. Tony had only known the kid for about a year and half, but there was a connection, like there was with him and Harley.

(Note to self, check up on Harley after talking to Hiro.)

Hiro tilted his head. "This has to do with you blowing up your Iron Man armor?"

"Yeah. I promised Pep no more superheroing."

The raised eyebrow on Hiro's face told Tony that he clearly didn't believe that was going to happen. Thankfully, Hiro didn't press. Smart kid. Tony knew he liked him for a reason.

"Arm," Hiro said, tugging at Tony's wrist.

Tony held out his arm, wondering what Hiro had up his sleeve. Especially when Hiro pulled out a roll of duct tape.

"Remember you asked me a year ago if Tadashi finished his medical bot?" Hiro asked.

"Yeah. What abo-! OW! What the fuck Hiro?!" Tony yelped as Hiro slapped the duct tape Tony's arm and ripped it away.

Hiro smirked as the sound of something inflating filled the room. "I told you I would show you one day."

Tony watched, eyes wide, as a white marshmallow robot approached the bed.

"Hello, I am Baymax. Your personal healthcare companion."

* * *

"Do you need any help rebuilding your Iron Man armor?"

Tony yelped as Hiro had appeared behind him suddenly in his lab. "Hiro what are you doing here?!"

Hiro smiled. "Pepper called me."

Tony choked. "Pepper knows?!"

Hiro rolled his eyes. "Pepper knows everything. Isn't that what you told me when we first met? Baymax is our babysitter to make sure we don't blow up anything."

Said medical bot was giving Dummy a fist bump. "Balalalala!" Baymax said.

Tony stared at Hiro. "Are you sure you don't want a job here at Stark Industries?" he asked. "You're graduating with your bachelor in like two months."

Hiro shook his head. "Nah. Was thinking of staying to get my masters. Maybe even my doctorate. The grant money for my research is also paying for my tuition."

"One day kid I'm going to get you to agree to work here."

"Dream on Tony."

* * *

Tony swept away the glass in his once again destroyed lab and living room. Ultron has been stopped, a city had been saved and… well he felt like shit. For all he played it off as laughs, for all his good intentions, he had really screwed up.

"Ultron huh?"

Tony whirled around to see Hiro standing in the doorway of the lab with his own broom. "Hiro. Why am I not surprised you know about Ultron?"

Hiro shrugged. "Well, you can imagine my surprise when I tried to hack into your mainframe, it wasn't JARVIS that greeted me, but FRIDAY. More digging found that you actually finished the Ultron Project, which led to even more digging. Add the news about the Hulk and oh the floating city of Sokovia, it was easy to piece together. Not to mention you were too busy to stop my hacking attempts."

"Trying to save the world you cheeky brat."

"You mean trying to fix your mistake."

Tony froze at Hiro's words.

Hiro hummed softly, ignoring Tony's silence. "You meant well, with Ultron, but obviously this time instead of the hero you became the well intentioned extremist."

Tony pinched his eyes shut. "Are we sure you're a kid? Cause you act way older than a bratty seventeen year old."

Hiro snorted. "Nah, just been there, done that. I tried to change Baymax's coding once."

Change Baymax's coding? That… that was extreme. It had only been a couple months since Tony met Baymax but it was pretty evident how strong the relationship between Baymax and Hiro was. It wasn't unsimilar to his relationship with JARVIS.

"Tadashi's death left me angry. Really angry," Hiro confided quietly. "Angry enough to want revenge against the very person who took my tech, who was responsible for Tadashi's death. I was fourteen and I had just lost the most important person in the world. If my friends… if Tadashi's friends hadn't been there, I would have done something I would have regretted."

Hiro gave Tony a wryly look and Tony was struck at how old Hiro looked. Here was another kid genius forced to grow up far too soon. It was a look Tony was all too familiar with, the reason why he lashed out like a child all the time despite being too old for said childlike tendencies. Perhaps that was why Tony was so attached to this kid. Saw a little too much of himself in Hiro.

"Like I said. Good intentions, bad decisions. The important thing is that you learn from it, right?" Hiro said.

"I get it, Hiro," Tony said. "I owe a couple people some apologies." Tony hated apologies, but he had to at least own up to the mistake he made. It wouldn't make things right, but yeah apologies. The least he could do. If he hadn't gone behind the team's back, Ultron wouldn't have created. If he had listened to Bruce the first time about why it was a bad idea, a city wouldn't be in ruin and thousands of people displaced. Pietro wouldn't be dead. JARVIS wouldn't be…

"When is JARVIS's funeral?" Hiro asked.

"I was gonna hold something small tomorrow," Tony admitted.

"Just the two of us?"

Tony fell silent. "Yeah. I think you're the only person who would really understand." JARVIS got uploaded into Vision… who wasn't quite JARVIS anymore. There wasn't another copy of JARVIS. One couldn't just make a backup of an AI. Even if Tony had the base code for JARVIS, the JARVIS being reuploaded wouldn't the same JARVIS that Tony lost. That's why FRIDAY had been uploaded to the suits instead of another copy of JARVIS.

Hiro understood because Baymax was one of a kind. They had debated about mass producing Baymax, getting Tadashi's dream out there. It was a pet project they had been working together on. But the first Baymax was always going to be unique, different than any Baymax after that. It wasn't going to be the same.

They were made up of just bits and numbers and lines of codes. That didn't make them any less _human_.

Tony didn't think the rest of the team would really understand. Maybe they would. But most likely not.

"Thanks for coming, Hiro."

"Anytime, Tony."

* * *

"I present the graduating class of 20XX!"

Cheers rang out as the new graduates left the stage. Tony slipped in between the crowds of people, seeking out his favorite kid genius. He spotted the nineteen year old standing by the fence. Cass was with him, beaming so proudly it looked like her smile was about to break her face.

"I'm so proud of you Hiro!" Cass said, hugging her nephew.

"Hey Hiro," Tony greeted, coming to a stop in front of two of his favorite people in the world. Hiro, for being the kid genius he was, brilliant and amazing. Cass, who made the best food on the West Coast.

"Glad you could make it Tony," Hiro said.

"My favorite kid genius. Of course I'm gonna come," Tony said.

"And you're going to stay for dinner," Cass said proudly. "I'm not taking no for an answer, Mr. Stark."

"Can't turn down good food," Tony said. He rocked back on his heels. "So, Doctor Hamada. Can I interest you in a job at Stark Industries?"

Hiro smirked. "Well, open a branch here in San Fransokyo and then we'll talk."

Tony returned the smirk. "Well, now that you mentioned it… there is one branch opening up here next month."

"Deal."

* * *

Haha all I wanted to write was a small scene between Hiro and Tony about Tony's intention with Ultron and the plunny involved into this. It wasn't exactly the same, but once upon the time Hiro's intention of catching the bad guy responsible for the Tadashi's death quickly involved into killing said bad guy. Not unsimilar to Tony's intention to protect the world, but using an untested source which evolved into a killing robot named Ultron. Plus the loss of JARVIS. Vision is great and all but he isn't JARVIS, said so himself and with FRIDAY being used, what does that mean for JARVIS? He's gone for good? If Baymax hadn't given Hiro his chip, even if Hiro had rebuilt Baymax it wouldn't have been the same Baymax he had spent time with and fought against Yokai with.

Please do not ask for a sequel/continuation. :D


End file.
